“This must have been the chapter house,” said Jocelyn, but I did not think he was very much interested in the ruins. We were both overwhelmed by the significance of our being alone together. I did not know what I wanted to do except cling to him and keep him safe. I wished the boat could come straight to the Eyot and carry us both to France.
There was a strange atmosphere on that lonely island. It was such a still day. The mist hung in wisps which did not move. They looked strange-grey and ghostly.
“There’s the church tower,” I pointed out. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the bells started to ring and we saw the black figures of the monks coming in to complines.”
“Not the right time of day,” said Jocelyn promptly, and I remembered then that he was a Catholic and that would be a further reason why my family would be upset. My father was firmly Protestant. Not that he was a truly religious man. Religion with him was a form of politics. I knew that he would not be pleased for me to marry into a prominent Catholic family, and that it should be one which was in danger would infuriate him.
Strangely enough, I thought about him as often as I did about my mother. I pictured myself saying to him: “What does it matter to you? You never cared about me. What difference can it make to you whom I marry?” There was bitterness there. I had cared deeply about his neglect of me. And I still cared.
“Where shall we have our picnic?” asked Jocelyn.
I laughed happily. “I seem to be indulging in more al fresco picnics this winter than I ever did during any summer.”
“I shall never forget the picnic by the cave … you and I together,” he said.
“I don’t think I have ever been so frightened as I was when that dog came into the cave.”
“Neither so frightened nor so happy,” he answered. “I knew you loved me in that moment.”
“I knew it, too. It took danger to reveal it to me.”
“Priscilla, you are very young.”
“I am not too young,” I answered.
Then he turned to me and kissed me with a mingling of tenderness and passion which moved me deeply.
“Shall we go into that room? I think they would have called it the scriptorium. There would be shelter there. I’ll get the rugs out of the boat and we’ll spread them out on the flags there. Then we’ll eat in our roofless heaven. What do you think?”
“It sounds wonderful. Let’s do it.”
We laughed together as I spread the cloth and brought out the cold beef and pies which had been packed for us with the cider to quench our thirst.
“There is ample here,” I said. “Enough for three. Of course some of it was for Christabel.”
“It was good of her to give us this tune to ourselves,” said Jocelyn.
“Do you think she did it purposely?”
“I do,” he answered.
I was thoughtful. I was not sure.
We leaned against the wall of the scriptorium and I looked up at the grey mist through what was left of the roof.
“What a strange place this is,” I commented. “The servants say they see lights here at night.”
“Servants will say these things. Are you getting frightened?”
“Not with you here.”
“That’s what I like to hear. You never need be afraid, Priscilla, as long as I am here to protect you.”
“What a comforting thought! Have some more of this pie. It is rather delicious.”
“Harriet has a good cook.”
“Harriet would always have the best of everything.”
“We have every reason to be grateful to her.”
I agreed.
Then we talked about the wonder of our meeting and the glorious possibility of our marrying. I had heard of girls making runaway matches. There had been one big scandal when a girl had run away with a man twenty years older than herself. He was a fortune hunter, and it had been too late for her family to stop the marriage. The girl had been only fourteen at the time.
I was fourteen and I was proposing to marry not a fortune hunter but a fugitive.
I couldn’t help it. I was in love. I was going to live my own life. I was sorry because I had to hurt my mother. As for my father he might rave all he liked … but perhaps he wouldn’t. Perhaps he would shrug his shoulders and say, “Well, it is only Priscilla.”
We were so happy talking, making plans-although I wondered whether he felt as I did, that there was something unreal about them and that it was hardly likely that they would ever come to pass.
We would go back to the house. We would tell Harriet that we were going to be married.
She would find a priest for us and we would make our vows. Then the boat would come and we would go to France. There would be an outcry against us but in due course the wretched Titus Gates would be seen to be the villain he was and my parents would realize that it was no use continuing to fret about an established fact.
“My mother was exiled in France when she was a girl,” I told Jocelyn. “How strange!
It will seem like history repeating itself.”
“This will be rather different.”
“I know. Nothing like this ever happened to anyone before.”
